Padua Gives Writers a Chance to Build Plays

Padua’s back.

On Thursday, the 14th annual Padua Hills Playwrights’ Festival kicks off its third summer sojourn at Cal State Northridge’s Art & Design Center. Originally situated in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the outdoor festival--which includes a seven-week writers workshop for 25 students chosen from across the country--continues to thrive as a haven for new plays, new forms and new ideas.

The festival is divided into two programs. In the “A” series: Robert Hummer’s “Fetters,” Susan Mosakowski’s “The Tight Fit,” Susan Champagne’s “Song of Songs” and Julie Hebert’s “The Knee Desires the Dirt.” On “B” night come Kelly Stuart’s “The Interpreter of Horror,” John O’Keefe’s “The Promotion” and festival founder Murray Mednick’s “Heads.”

“Some of the impulses for my piece came from the meditative exercises I’d been doing with Murray, having different parts of the body speak,” said playwright-director Hebert, a Padua fixture since 1983. “I was looking for a way to let that out--in non-realistic dialogue. So a large percentage of the play takes place in the characters’ thoughts and daydreams; they deal with each other in that dream world.” She paused. “It’s going to be tricky to pull that off.”

The story finds three characters--a couple and the woman’s mother--visiting a grave site.

“The mother had been taking care of it, but not in the last few years,” Hebert said. “Now, it’s littered, a mess. As they clean it up, they deal with loneliness, death, letting go of things.” Another factor was her own grandmother’s recent battle with cancer: “It was the first time someone close to me was dying--but it’s coming at you slowly; you deal with it over time. It was also inspiring to see her spirit in the face of the illness.”

The Louisiana native, currently artistic producing director of New Orleans’ Contemporary Arts Center, came to theater relatively late--after college (where she majored in biology and psychology), during a pre-grad school break in San Francisco. Hooking up with Robert Woodruff, Sam Shepard and Murray Mednick, she began working as a director; in 1982, Hebert finally tried her hand at writing. “Padua is where things start,” she said. “I feel so safe doing this kind of experimentation here. I wouldn’t feel that anywhere else.”

Los Angeles-based Kelly Stuart also came to Padua via Mednick--he was her teacher at the University of La Verne 12 years ago. “He invited me to Padua, gave me a scholarship, a place to stay,” the writer said. “He changed my life.”

At Padua, Stuart served as an intern and production assistant; in the outside world, she’s weathered such jobs as waitress, receptionist and taxi dancer.

Not surprisingly, the main characters of her “The Interpreter of Horror” are two waitresses.

“They’re obsessed with serial killers,” Stuart said. “They work at dead-end jobs; there’s a lot of frustration and cruelty--and this helps them see things that are worse off than they are. It’s also about not denying the dark side, where everything’s Smile! Smile! and you always have to be so obsequious and cheerful. So yes, it came out of my own experience with those horrible jobs. And I’m also obsessed with serial killers.”

No kidding. “It can be real unappealing dinner conversation,” Stuart admitted with a laugh. As a regular attendee of the Night Stalker murder trial, she said: “I was fascinated by that pathology, looking for some understanding, some knowledge. How does evil exist in our lives? That’s what the play’s really about.” Writing also serves as an outlet for tending to two young children. “Being a mother,” Stuart joked, “has its dark side too.”

John O’Keefe has some fun with the corporate dark side in “The Promotion,” the story of a yuppie (played by Scott Paulin) after hours in a business building gone berserk. “It’s about what goes on in an empty building--and to Ted, our hero,” said O’Keefe who, with Hebert and Stuart, is teaching the workshops. “Every time he goes back, the building gets stranger, and so does he. It deals with themes of ecology, power-mongering, the desolate life of 9-to-5ers.”

An earlier version of the piece was presented at Lincoln Center in 1989; then it was 20 minutes, now it’s 30. “I realized I’d cut it too fine,” he said. Also different: O’Keefe himself originally performed his work, the text laid out before him on a music stand. “I thought of it more as a literary piece,” he said. “But with Scott, I wanted to see another actor do it--get another take on it, use lights, get the script off the music stand, move it around.”

The San Francisco-based writer, who has received Shubert and Rockefeller grants for his work, thinks the play can only benefit from such experimentation. “When I do the piece again, I’m going to take as much back from Scott as I can,” he said with a chuckle. A Padua regular since 1982, O’Keefe says “the best actors in the country come here. You have a chance to really build a piece.” And keep building. “I’m still rewriting,” he admits. “I never really stop.”